Celia Walden lives behind the big navy blue door of a very impressive house in Holland Park, the exclusive area of London that’s home to multimillionaires such as Richard Branson and Simon Cowell. It’s a four-storey house – the sort that I could never dream to own on a journalist’s salary – unless I also authored a couple of books, became a regular fixture on morning television (for Daybreak) and married one of the highest-paid journalists in the world – namely Piers Morgan.

As much a surprise to herself as anybody, the woman who made her name as a celebrity gossip columnist gathering scoops about the rich and famous at star-studded parties for The Daily Telegraph from 2004 – she still writes for them and other high-profile publications – has become almost as well-known as some of the famed names she interviews. Celia has no qualms in admitting that her profile has been bolstered in part by her relationship with Piers and the A-list lifestyle that goes with it but she’s no WAG; Celia has her own impressive career in journalism and is about to release her second book, Babysitting George, which is published next week.

A memoir about Celia’s time with George Best (‘babysitting’ being a journalistic term for effectively minding a celebrity and preventing them from selling their story to a rival newspaper), it covers a pre-Piers period in 2003 when she was sent out to Malta by the Mail On Sunday for three months to accompany the footballer at the height of his alcoholism. Both sad and astounding, the tale is a testament to her talents as a writer and a journalist.

Knowing that Celia is privy to all the tricks of the journalism trade, interviewing her is slightly unnerving but instead of expertly tiptoeing around my questions, Celia offers colourful and frank anecdotes (there is even one point where she asks me if there is anything juicier she can give me). Making me comfortable in her living room, we talk through everything from the books on her shelves to her career ambitions and “very weird” first year of marriage. Owing to the fact that Piers has relocated to Los Angeles to fulfil a reported $25million contract anchoring his own CNN show and judging America’s Got Talent, the couple have been long distance for the last 12 months. But, as she reveals, that’s all about to change this July, when Celia heads out to join him permanently…

Let’s start with the book – how old were you when you were sent out to ‘babysit’ George Best?

I was 25 and a rookie journalist and had absolutely no knowledge of what ‘babysitting’ was. The red tops still do it – send people out to make sure mistresses and whistleblowers selling their stories to them don’t talk to any other press. George was the weekly columnist for the Mail On Sunday so everyone was really interested in him, and obviously there was this huge soap opera with the liver transplant and his wife leaving him. He started boozing again that summer and that’s why I was sent out because he was a total liability. He was at the stage where he didn’t care and would speak to anyone standing beside him at the bar really.

When you came away, did you have any sort of affection for him?

I think I found it sad that such an intelligent man had just been completely eaten up by his celebrity. I’ve never met a footballer since who has been as remotely clever as him. He read Hemingway and Oscar Wilde, not what you would expect. What I found interesting was how you can become addicted to celebrity – he kept saying that he wanted to be left alone but then he would do things that would suggest that he didn’t. Now you see all these car crashes like Charlie Sheen and they’re the same kind of thing. I think I hoped that he would change but I think he had decided that was his future well before I met him.

Interview: Celia Walden